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MEMOIR 


OF 


CHARLES  HENRY  D  ALTON. 


BY 
ROGER   BIGELOW  MERRIMAN. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON. 

SEnforattg  Pros. 
1909. 


F73 
X55M4- 


From  the 

Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 

for  April,  1909. 


WSMRY  MORSE  STBTOEH8 


M  EM  0  I  E 


Charles  Henry  Dalton  was  born  at  Chelmsford,  Massa- 
chusetts, September  25,  1826,  the  third  of  eight  children  of 
John  Call  Dalton  and  Julia  Ann  Spalding.  On  both  sides 
he  was  descended  from  families  whose  history  is  intimately 
connected  with  the  early  growth  and  development  of  New 
England. 

His  great-grandfather,  James  Dalton,  who  was  born  in 
1718,  was  the  first  of  his  family  to  settle  in  Boston.  Whether 
or  not  he  was  descended  from  the  Daltons  who  emigrated  to 
this  country  in  1635,  and  whose  principal  home  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  was  at  Hampton,  New  Hampshire,  I  have  been 
unable  to  discover:  the  probabilities  on  the  whole  seem  to 
point  in  this  direction.  From  his  early  youth  James  Dalton 
was  engaged  in  seafaring  pursuits.  In  1740  he  was  com- 
mander of  the  brigantine  "  Joshua,"  trading  from  Boston  to 
London,  and  later  became  the  owner  of  various  vessels,  voy- 
aging along  the  coast  to  the  Carolinas,  West  Indies,  and  some- 
times to  Europe.  In  1756  he  purchased  an  estate  in  Boston 
on  the  south  side  of  Water  Street,  which  contained  a  tanyard, 
garden,  dwelling-house,  and  other  buildings.  These  he  pulled 
down  and  in  1758  built  upon  the  property  a  Mansion  House 1 
which  was  occupied  by  himself  and  family  during  the  remainder 
of  his  life  and  afterwards  by  his  son,  Peter  Roe  Dalton.  After 
the  "great  fire"  of  1760,  when  this  part  of  the  town  was  re- 
built, a  committee  of  the  General  Court  ordered  a  new  street, 
running  from  Milk  to  Water  Street,  to  be  laid  out  through 

1  A  picture  of  this  Mansion  House  forms  the  central  portion  of  Mr.  Charles 
H.  Dalton's  book-plate,  designed  in  1903. 


511228 


the  estate  in  such  a  way  as  to  divide  it  very  unequally  and 
render  the  smaller  part  unavailable  for  building  purposes.  A 
memorial  addressed  by  Captain  Dalton  to  the  General  Court 
resulted  in  moving  the  site  of  the  proposed  street  further 
west,  so  that  it  divided  the  estate  more  equally,  and  in  con- 
sideration of  this  Captain  Dalton  agreed  not  to  require  any 
compensation  for  the  portion  of  his  land  occupied  by  the  new 
street,  which  was  known  as  "  Dalton's  Lane  "  and  "  Dalton's 
Street "  until  the  year  1800,  when  its  name  was  changed  to 
Congress  Street. 

Captain  Dalton  was  one  of  the  proprietors  of  King's  Chapel 
at  the  time  of  its  rebuilding,  and  owned  at  various  times  pews 
26,  40,  53,  58,  and  98.  He  married  January  24,  1740,  Abi- 
gail, daughter  of  Peter  Roe,  a  resident  of  Boston,  and  widow 
of  Judah  Alden.  He  died  April  21,  1783.  He  is  described 
as  "  prudent,  but  energetic  and  successful  in  business,  perse- 
vering, liberal  and  public-spirited,  courteous  to  his  associates, 
and  of  a  kindly  disposition." 

Of  his  ten  children  the  second  (and  oldest  son),  Peter  Roe 
Dalton,  was  born  in  1743  and  died  in  1811.  In  his  youth  he 
followed  his  father's  calling  and  went  to  sea.  The  similarity 
between  his  character,  tastes,  and  career  and  those  of  his 
grandson,  the  subject  of  this  memoir,  is  too  striking  to  be 
passed  over  without  comment.  During  the  American  Revo- 
lution he  was  Deputy  Commissary-General  of  Issues  in  the 
Continental  service,  receiving  and  distributing  provisions  of 
all  kinds  to  the  troops  stationed  at  Boston,  to  the  prisoners  of 
war  confined  in  the  harbor,  and  to  the  French  fleet  under 
the  Count  d'Estaing.  In  1782  he  was  appointed  by  the  Gen- 
eral Court  of  Massachusetts  one  of  a  committee  to  settle  the 
accounts  of  the  Board  of  War  of  that  State,  and  to  examine 
and  certify  all  claims  against  the  State  arising  from  losses  in 
the  Penobscot  expedition  of  1779.  He  was  connected  with 
several  financial  and  commercial  organizations  in  Boston,  and 
frequently  acted  as  executor  and  administrator.  He  is  de- 
scribed as  "  a  man  of  great  activity  and  devotion  to  business, 
and  capable  of  managing  large  interests.  He  was  prompt  to 
detect  and  thwart  any  attempt  at  gaining  undue  advantage 
and  decided,  though  polite,  in  his  manner  of  doing  so.  He 
was  fond  of  generous  living,  and  accustomed  to  make  ample 
provision  for  his  bodily  comfort,  but  was  never  excessive  in 


any  personal  indulgence."  Mutatis  mutandis,  this  portrait, 
both  of  character  and  occupations,  will  be  found  to  fit  his 
grandson  equally  well. 

Peter  Roe  Dal  ton  was  twice  married.  His  first  wife, 
Susannah  Griggs,  bore  him  four  children,  of  whom  one,  a 
daughter,  survived ;  his  second,  Anne  Call,  bore  him  eleven, 
of  whom  the  tenth  was  the  father  of  the  subject  of  this 
memoir.  John  Call  Dalton's  distinguished  career  as  a  physi- 
cian in  Chelmsford,  Lowell,  and  Boston,  and  in  the  Civil  War 
does  not  need  description  here.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  he  was 
the  ideal  doctor  of  the  old  school,  of  the  days  before  the  prac- 
tice of  medicine  had  become  highly  specialized,  and  one  who 
was  able  by  his  sterling  character  as  well  as  his  professional 
attainments  to  render  priceless  service  to  the  community 
where  he  lived. 

Mr.  Dalton's  maternal  ancestors  were  a  race  of  farmers. 
Edward  Spalding  (or  Spaulding,  as  the  name  was  then  spelt) 
came  to  America  in  the  earliest  years  of  the  Massachusetts 
Colony,  probably  between  1630  and  1633.  After  a  brief  resi- 
dence at  Braintree,  he  went  to  Chelmsford  at  the  time  of  the 
first  settlement  of  that  town,  and  at  the  first  town-meeting, 
September  22,  1654,  was  chosen  one  of  the  selectmen.  Seven 
generations  of  his  descendants  lived  at  Chelmsford,  cultivating 
and  increasing  the  land  which  was  granted  to  their  ancestor, 
yeomen  all,  and  servants  of  the  town,  colony,  state,  and  church 
at  various  occasions  and  in  various  ways.  By  all  odds  the  most 
distinguished  member  of  the  family  was  Simeon  Spalding 
(1713-1785),  the  fourth  in  descent  from  Edward,  and  the  great- 
grandfather of  Charles  H.  Dalton.  His  most  notable  services 
were  rendered  in  connection  with  the  American  Revolution. 
In  1770  he  was  chosen  representative  of  his  town  "  at  a  Great 
and  General  Court  and  Assembly  appointed  to  be  convened, 
held  and  kept  for  his  Majesty's  service  at  Harvard  College  "  ; 
and  again  in  1773,  1774,  1775,  and  1776.  In  February,  1776, 
he  was  commissioned  colonel  of  the  Seventh  Regiment  of  Pro- 
vincial Militia,  and  in  1779  delegate  to  the  Convention  for 
framing  a  Constitution  of  Government  for  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts Bay.  These  and  many  other  minor  offices  attest  his 
prominence  in  the  public  service  in  this  first  great  crisis  of  our 
national  existence. 

Such  were   the   high  traditions  and   noble   inheritance  of 


6 

Charles  H.  Dalton.     By  a  long  and  active  life  of  service  and 
good  citizenship  he  was  to  prove  himself  worthy  of  them. 

The  first  five  years  of  Mr.  Dalton's  life  were  spent  for  the 
most  part  at  Chelmsford,  until  his  father's  removal  to  Lowell 
in  1831.  The  only  incident  of  this  period  of  which  there  is 
any  record  is  his  first  journey  to  Boston  in  1827  at  the  age  of 
one,  made  by  the  then  famous  Middlesex  Canal,  which  was  first 
open  for  traffic  in  1803,  only  to  be  superseded,  some  thirty 
years  later,  by  the  Boston  and  Lowell  Railroad.  Mr.  Dalton 
used  to  be  fond  of  pointing  out,  as  a  unique  illustration  of  the 
radical  changes  in  the  methods  of  transportation  that  have 
been  witnessed  in  New  England  in  the  past  seventy  years,  that 
this  canal  trip  landed  him  in  Haymarket  Square  on  precisely 
the  spot  now  occupied  by  one  of  the  stations  of  the  subway 
to  whose  construction  he  devoted  so  much  care  and  labor 
in  his  later  life.  His  boyhood  and  early  youth  were  spent  in 
Chelmsford  and  Lowell ;  he  was  a  pupil  at  the  common  school 
at  Chelmsford,  and  at  the  Lowell  High  School  before  the.  year 
1844,  after  which  he  was  sent  to  a  boarding  school  at  Med- 
ford ;  but  of  college  education  he  had  none.  It  was  a  source 
of  the  deepest  regret  to  him  in  later  life  that  he  never 
went  to  Harvard.  An  honest  fear  that  he  might  not  be 
able  to  equal  the  brilliant  record  there  of  his  elder  brother 
John,  who  graduated  in  1844,  was  perhaps  the  chief  reason 
why  he  decided  not  to  go.  Great  and  genuine  modesty  in 
regard  to  his  intellectual  attainments  was  ever  one  of  his 
most  prominent  traits. 

Mr.  Dalton  entered  upon  his  long  and  successful  business 
career  as  a  salesman  in  the  firm  of  R.  A.  Crafts  and  Company 
certainly  not  later  than  the  year  1848.  This  firm  was  engaged 
in  the  manufacture  of  ginghams  and  mousseline-de-laines  and 
its  mills  were  in  Taunton  ;  but  Mr.  Dalton,  to  judge  from  the 
Boston  Directory  of  1848-1849,  was  employed  in  the  Boston 
office,  which  was  located  at  49  Milk  Street.  In  the  year  1849 
he  was  transferred  to  the  commission  house  of  Sayles,  Mer- 
riam,  and  Brewer,  selling  agents  for  some  of  the  largest  facto- 
ries in  New  England.  His  first  important  service  to  this  firm 
was  rendered  in  the  settlement  of  a  strike  among  the  operatives 
of  the  Hamilton  Woollen  Company  at  Southbridge,  a  task 
which  he  accomplished  so  successfully  that  he  was  soon  put  in 


charge  as  manager  there,  and  continued  to  reside  for  the  most 
part  at  Globe  Village,  a  part  of  Southbridge,  during  the  next 
five  years. 

Fragments  of  a  correspondence  between  Mr.  Dalton  and  the 
firm  that  employed  him  at  this  time  have  been  preserved,  and 
are  interesting  as  showing  that  he  inherited  all  his  grandfa- 
ther's ability  "  to  detect  and  thwart  any  attempt  at  gaining  un- 
due advantage,"  and  was  "  decided,  though  polite,  in  his  manner 
of  doing  so."  In  January,  1851,  it  was  proposed  that  he  should 
visit  England  for  three  months  in  order  to  inform  himself  con- 
cerning the  factories  and  manufacturing  methods  there :  his 
firm,  however,  desired  him  before  his  departure  to  engage 
positively  to  remain  with  them  five  years  longer,  but  attempted 
at  the  same  time  to  reserve  to  themselves  the  privilege  of 
terminating  the  connection  at  any  moment,  and  hinted  that  if 
Mr.  Dalton  was  unable  to  fall  in  with  their  plans,  the}'  should 
be  obliged  to  find  another  to  fill  his  place.  To  this  proposal 
Mr.  Dalton  wrote  a  decided  though  courteous  letter  of  objec- 
tion, pointing  out  the  unfairness  of  the  terms  and  desiring  a 
more  equitable  arrangement.  The  precise  nature  of  the  settle- 
ment of  this  difference  of  opinion  is  not  apparent,  but  it  is  clear 
that  Mr.  Dalton's  views  prevailed,  for  he  sailed  for  Europe  in 
less  than  a  month  in  the  employ  of  the  firm,  but  terminated 
his  connection  with  it,  of  his  own  volition,  in  the  latter  part 
of  1853,  before  the  five  years  had  elapsed. 

His  first  impressions  of  England  are  interestingly  recounted 
in  a  letter  to  his  father,  dated  from  Manchester,  March  13, 
1851: 

I  have  been  into  various  parts  of  the  west  of  England,  through  the 
counties  of  Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  Chester  and  Derbyshire.  Every- 
where the  country  is  beautiful,  highly  cultivated,  not  an  inch  of  ground 
wasted,  the  roads  fifty  miles  from  Manchester  as  clear  and  smooth  as 
Boston  streets.  The  only  objection  to  them  is  that  about  every  two 
miles  there  is  a  toll  bar  where  it  is  necessary  to  pay  tribute.  .  .  . 
Last  night  I  went  to  a  dinuer  party  about  five  miles  from  Manchester 

at  Mr.  H 's,  the  partner  of  Miss  P 's  friend.     Hope  Hall  is  the 

name  of  the  house.  The  style  of  these  things  here  is  quiet  and  dignified, 
elegant  in  all  parts.  To  me  thus  far,  they  have  been  pleasaut  because 
they  are  somewhat  of  a  novelty,  but  I  should  think  the  gentlemen  would 
get  weary  of  them.  I  arrived  at  about  five  minutes  before  6.30  (the 
dining  hour  stated  on  the  card)  and  was  relieved  of  my  coat  and  hat 


8 

by  one  servant  in  livery,  straw  colored  small  clothes,  white  neck 
handkerchief,  etc.,  and  announced  by  another  who  evidently  knew  my 
name  beforehand.  Three  or  four  guests  had  arrived  before  me  and  in 
five  minutes  all  had  come,  making  a  party  of  about  twenty.     I  being 

the  only  stranger,  Mr.  H asked  me  to  take  Mrs.  H to  the 

table  when  dinner  was  announced  and  to  take  a  seat  on  her  right ; 
the  other  guests  were  arranged  without  fuss ;  and  down  we  went,  about 
six  servants  in  livery  being  at  the  foot  of  the  dining  room,  as  solemn 
and  stiff  and  to  me,  a  little  fantastic,  as  a  drum  major.  The  room  was 
rather  bare  of  furniture  and  ornament  but  the  heavy  drapery  and  large 
dining  chairs  made  it  look  comfortable  enough.  The  courses  lasted,  I 
should  think,  about  two  hours,  when  the  ladies  left  and  the  gentlemen 
clustered  around  one  end  of  the  board  and  talked  and  drank,  eight  or 
nine  of  us,  keeping  about  as  many  decanters  running  the  gauntlet  for 
an  hour  louger.     We  then  followed  the  ladies,  had  tea,  and  a  very  little 

execution  by  the  Misses  H on  harp  and  piano.     At  ten  precisely, 

"  Your  fly,  Sir,"  was  announced  to  three  or  four  of  us  and  as  regularly 
and  quietly  as  clock  work,  we  took  our  leave.  .  .  . 

England  is  a  fine  place  to  live  in  if  one  is  rich,  but  Heaven  help  the 
poor.  I  have  got  so  accustomed  to  the  beggars  of  all  degrees  and  ages 
that  they  make  no  impression  at  the  moment.  Yesterday  I  passed  a 
family  of  six  or  eight,  mostly  females,  and  though  I  was  cold  with  a 
thick  top  coat  and  shawl,  and  it  was  raining  at  the  time,  not  more 
than  half  their  bodies  were  covered  with  anything.  There  is  misery 
and  degradation  in  this  city  among  the  factory  classes  which  is  not 
dreamed  of  in  Lowell,  and  many  a  person  may  tour  it  through  Eng- 
land without  seeing  much  which  places  it  infinitely  below  America  in 
point  of  respectability.  The  hospitality  and  good  manners  and  elegant, 
stylish  mode  of  living  of  the  rich  is  pleasant  to  their  guests,  but  the 
misery,  heart  sickening  to  look  upon  in  some  of  the  crowded  streets  of 
Manchester,  is  fully  strong  enough  in  contrast.  On  a  Saturday  after- 
noon, after  the  hands  are  paid  off,  I  have  been  among  the  gin-shops, 
which  are  on  every  corner,  with  a  living  stream  going  in  and  out, 
young  girls  and  boys,  men  and  women.  England  is  n't  all  a  palace, 
nor  will  average  so  near  it  as  America. 

Within  three  years  after  his  return  from  England  Mr.  Dalton 
became  a  partner  of  the  selling  house  of  J.  C.  Howe  and  Com- 
pany, and  as  such  was  chiefly  occupied  from  1854  to  1859  with 
management  and  rebuilding  of  the  Print  Works  at  Manchester, 
New  Hampshire.  He  was  perhaps  more  closely  identified  with 
this  business  than  with  any  other  in  which  he  was  ever 
engaged.  In  it  he  displayed  to  the  full  that  remarkable  ca- 
pacity for  organization  and  administration  which  characterized 


him  to  the  day  of  his  death,  and  his  energy,  integrity,  and 
skill  were  rewarded  with  marked  success  on  every  hand.  The 
time,  however,  was  near  when  he  was  to  have  the  opportunity 
to  employ  these  talents  in  another  field.  The  first  and  per- 
haps the  most  notable  of  the  many  public  services  which  it  was 
the  good  fortune  of  Mr.  Dalton  to  render  and  which  later  made 
his  name  almost  a  byword  for  public  spirit  and  good  citizen- 
ship in  the  community  was  in  connection  with  the  Civil  War. 

Like  all  the  bravest  and  best  of  his  day  and  generation,  Mr. 
Dalton's  attention  became  more  and  more  closely  focussed  on 
the  great  national  crisis,  which  loomed  ever  larger  on  the 
political  horizon  in  the  autumn  of  1860  and  the  spring  of  1861. 
An  ardent  Northerner,  he  did  not  underestimate  (at  least  not 
as  gravely  as  did  most  men)  the  power  of  the  southern  Con- 
federacy, and  was  deeply  convinced  from  the  first  that  it  would 
be  necessary  to  put  down  any  resistance  by  force  of  arms. 
The  first  occasion  on  which  he  offered  his  services  to  his 
country  was  in  connection  with  the  inauguration  of  Lincoln 
in  March,  1861.  He  wrote  at  least  twice  to  the  authorities 
at  Washington  to  ask  if  his  presence  on  that  occasion  might 
not  be  desirable  as  a  means  of  helping  quell  a  disturbance, 
should  such  occur.  Answered  in  the  negative,  he  abandoned 
his  intention  of  immediately  repairing  to  the  capital,  but  the 
news  of  the  firing  on  Sumter  which  followed  in  April  made 
him  resolve  once  more  to  put  himself  at  his  country's 
service.  On  May  20,  1861,  he  accepted  an  appointment 
from  Governor  Andrew  to  act  as  Agent  of  the  Common- 
wealth of  Massachusetts  at  Washington,  whither  he  at  once 
repaired,  and  remained  (save  for  occasional  visits  to  the 
North  at  moments  of  comparative  leisure)  until  January, 
1862.  On  September  27,  1861,  he  received  another  mark 
of  Governor  Andrew's  confidence  by  his  promotion  to  the 
post  of  assistant  quartermaster-general  of  the  militia  of 
the  Commonwealth  (the  appointment  to  date  from  May  23), 
and  the  following  day  he  was  commissioned  with  the  rank 
of  colonel. 

The  duties  of  his  position  in  Washington  are  best  described 
by  the  following  extracts  from  the  letter  of  instructions  which 
was  sent  him  by  the  Massachusetts  authorities  the  day  after 
his  first  appointment : 


10 

All  supplies  for  our  troops  forwarded  to  Washington  will  be  sent  to  your 
care  and  the  vessels  when  the  supplies  are  sent  by  water  will  be  consigned 
to  you.  You  will  attend  to  the  disposal  and  distribution,  or  storage  of 
the  supplies,  according  to  directions  sent  you,  or  to  the  best  of  your  judg- 
ment in  the  absence  of  specific  directions.  You  will  communicate  with 
the  proper  departments  of  the  U.  S.  Government  in  relation  to  stores 
sold,  or  troops  carried,  or  any  transport  service,  and  see  that  all  proper 
allowances  are  made,  and  all  bills  settled  either  by  payment,  or  by  being 
put  in  a  shape,  as  to  vouchers  and  allowance,  to  require  no  adjustment 
hereafter. 

You  will  communicate  with  the  Colonels,  Quarter  Masters,  and  com- 
manding officers  of  the  Mass'tts  troops,  and  everything  wanted  by  them 
will  be  received  through  you,  and  all  requisitions  and  requests  for  sup- 
plies must  be  transmitted  by  them  through  you,  with  proper  explana- 
tions, when  you  have  not  the  means  or  authority  to  supply  them.  You 
will  look  up  as  far  as  possible  and  take  charge  of,  any  Massachusetts 
supplies,  stores  or  equipments  that  have  heretofore  gone  astray,  and  if 
they  have  gone  into  possession  of  U.  S.  officers  recover  them  or  procure 
payment  or  vouchers  therefor. 

You  will  also  transact  any  business  for  the  State  with  any  of  the 
Departments.  You  will  have  a  room  where  you  or  some  clerk  will 
constantly  be  found,  to  receive  messages  by  telegraph  or  otherwise, 
and  to  transact  any  necessary  business. 

You  will  keep  an  account  of  all  expenses  and  report  as  nearly  daily 
as  practicable  all  your  doings.  You  can  employ  a  clerk  if  necessary  and 
your  reasonable  and  proper  expenses  with  a  proper  compensation  for 
your  services  will  be  paid  by  the  State. 

You  will  doubtless  want  a  copying  press.  If  you  have  occasion  to 
procure  storage,  you  may  be  able  to  make  arrangements  with  some  com- 
petent and  responsible  person  who  will  deliver  on  your  order. 

The  object  of  the  whole  arrangement  is  to  have  some  one  respon- 
sible and  competent  agent,  who  will  know  all  that  is  done  and  sent  from 
Massachusetts,  and  all  that  is  wanted  and  received  at  Washington,  or  by 
the  troops  wherever  stationed,  to  take  care  of  property,  take  vouchers, 
prevent  waste,  and  be  the  sole  channel  or  communication  between 
supply  and  demand.  This  agent  you  are  to  be  until  some  further 
arrangement. 

It  was  a  position  closely  resembling  that  occupied  by  his 
grandfather  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  —  a  position  for 
which  he  was  pre-eminently  fitted  by  character,  ability,  pre- 
vious training,  and  inheritance. 

To  enumerate  in  detail  the  almost  infinite  variety  of  the 
tasks  that  were  laid  upon  Mr.  Dal  ton  during  the  busy  eight 


11 

months  of  this  hrst  stay  in  Washington  would  be  tedious  and 
unprofitable.  They  all  required  shrewd  judgment,  untiring 
energy,  patience,  and  good  temper.  Reconciliation  of  the 
conflicting  views  of  state  and  federal  officials,  rectification  of 
justifiable  grievances  and  soothing  the  makers  of  groundless 
complaints,  providing  for  the  care  of  the  sick  and  wounded 
and  settling  the  details  of  soldiers'  enlistment,  pay  and  pen- 
sions —  all  these  formed  part  of  his  manifold  duties.  A  few 
examples  drawn  from  his  correspondence  will  perhaps  serve  to 
make  the  picture  clear.  He  had  scarcely  got  established  at 
Washington  when  an  urgent  letter  from  the  military  secretary 
of  the  Commonwealth  arrived,  directing  him  to  represent  to 
Secretary  Cameron  "  the  miserable  state  of  the  coast  defences 
of  Massachusetts,  and  more  particularly  of  the  Harbor  and  city 
of  Boston."     The  language  of  the  epistle  is  noteworthy : 

The  mere  statement  of  the  fact  that  in  all  Fort  Warren  there  is  only 
one  gun,  and  that  in  Fort  Independence  there  are  only  a  few  barbette 
guns  and  no  casemate-guns  mounted,  and  that  these  constitute  the  entire 
defence  provided  by  the  Federal  Government  for  the  second  city  of  the 
Union  in  commercial  importance,  ought  to  be  sufficient,  it  would  seem, 
to  secure  immediate  attention.  But  when  to  this  is  added  the  fact  that 
the  less  reasonable  requests  made  from  certain  other  sections  of  the 
country  seem  to  meet  with  a  prompt  hearing,  and  a  ready  compliance, 
it  becomes  difficult  to  understand  why  the  delay  in  attending  to  the  de- 
fenceless condition  of  Boston  Harbor  is  not  a  grievous  injustice  to  our 
people,  and  we  have  yet  to  learn  that  Massachusetts  has  (either  by  what 
she  has  done  or  left  undone  of  late,  or  ever),  afforded  any  pretext  for 
the  Federal  Government  to  neglect  her  representations  and  requests. 
It  does  indeed,  appear  at  times,  as  if  we  should  speak  to  a  more  willing 
ear,  if  we  were  not  so  unanimous  in  our  loyalty  and  if  the  Federal  ad- 
ministration did  not  count  so  surely  always  upon  the  contribution  of  blood 
and  treasure  we  are  glad  to  make  for  the  common  cause. 

About  all  we  ask  in  respect  to  the  Forts  in  Boston  Harbor  and  along 
our  coast  is  that  guns  which  are  now  lying  useless  at  Watertown  and 
Charlestown  and  Chicopee  and  elsewhere,  shall  be  transferred  to  them 
and  mounted.  They  will  be  just  as  much  the  property  and  under  the 
immediate  control  of  the  United  States  in  the  Forts,  as  where  they  are 
now  lying  ;  more  so,  because  if  it  should  become  absolutely  necessary  to 
remove  them,  they  would  then  be  at  spots  on  tidewater,  where  they  could 
promptly  be  transferred  to  shipboard.  For  instance  there  are,  and  have 
been  for  many  years,  lying  at  the  Foundry  of  Messrs.  Ames  at  Chicopee, 
three  12  lb.  brass  guns  and  the  same  number  of  12  lb.  brass  howitzers, 


12 

belonging  to  the  United  States,  which  were  accepted  and  paid  for,  long 
ago.  It  would  be  a  great  convenience  and  a  great  relief  if  these  guns, 
instead  of  lying  useless  stored  away  in  a  town  a  hundred  miles  away 
from  the  sea-board,  could  be  brought  down  to  Salem  or  New  Bedford  or 
Gloucester  or  Provincetown,  all  exposed  points  of  great  commercial  im- 
portance, which  are  lying  at  this  moment  at  the  mercy  of  any  privateer 
which  may  have  the  boldness  to  swoop  down  upon  them. 

But  in  the  instance  of  Boston  the  neglect  not  only  to  do  anything,  but 
even  to  assign  reasons  for  withholding  action  in  respect  to  the  Forts,  is 
to  us  perfectly  unaccountable  upon  any  theory  creditable  to  the  patriot- 
ism and  energy  of  those  officials  having  the  matter  in  charge. 

With  considerable  difficulty,  and  after  some  delay,  Mr. 
Dalton  obtained  access  to  Secretary  Cameron,  persuaded  him 
to  move  the  guns  as  requested,  and  received  the  Secretary's 
promise  to  send  an  armed  vessel  to  Nantucket  immediately. 

A  curious  matter  occupied  his  attention  from  the  22d  to 
the  24th  of  August.  A  company  of  Massachusetts  troops 
raised  in  Cambridge  by  a  certain  Captain  Burgess,  had  been 
induced,  by  false  representations,  to  leave  the  State  and  to 
attach  themselves  to  the  Fifth  Regiment  of  the  so-called  Sickles 
Brigade  in  New  York  —  thereby  depriving  their  families  of 
the  monthly  bounty  of  three  to  twelve  dollars  per  man,  re- 
cently provided  for  in  an  extra  session  of  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature.  A  prolonged  correspondence  between  the  gov- 
ernors of  Massachusetts  and  New  York  on  the  subject  had  not 
availed  to  secure  the  return  of  these  troops  to  a  Massachusetts 
regiment,  and  the  matter  was  finally  referred  to  Mr.  Dalton  at 
Washington  with  orders  to  lay  it  before  the  Secretary  of  War. 
Despite  the  sturdy  opposition  of  Sickles,  Mr.  Dalton  accom- 
plished his  task  in  two  days,  and  on  August  24  was  able  to 
send  to  Governor  Andrew  an  order  for  the  transfer  of  the 
Burgess  Company  to  any  Massachusetts  regiment  he  might 
select.  The  way  in  which  he  brought  this  about  may.  be 
judged  from  the  contents  of  the  two  following  letters.  To 
Governor  Andrew  he  writes : 

I  went  out  to  see  Burgess  yesterday,  found  him  ill,  but  his  command 
in  good  condition,  so  far  as  a  company,  so  badly  placed,  could  be.  Was 
satisfied  it  wd.  be  hard  for  it  to  remain  in  its  present  position.  Had  a 
talk  with  Sickles,  &  believe  he  wd.  oppose  any  change,  therefore  urged 
the  matter  to  a  final  conclusion,  with  Secy.  War  this  morning,  before 
Sickles  had  time  to  make  it  more  difficult.     I  did  so  settle  it,  in  con- 


13 

formity  with  your  instructions,  and  therefore  wd.  not  advise  that  any 
further  change  be  asked  for,  as  it  is  by  no  means  easy  to  get  the  Dept. 
to  take  hold  of  such  a  delicate  matter. 

And  to  a  private  friend  : 

In  the  morning,  I  had  a  hard  job  at  War  Dept.  namely,  to  get  a 
Mass.  company  now  in  a  New  York  Rgt.  commanded  by  .  .  .  Sickles, 
transferred  to  a  Mass.  Rgt.  He  was  determined  the  transfer  should 
not  be  made,  and  I  concluded  to  try  metal  with  him,  and  succeeded  in 
getting  just  what  I  wanted,  which  pleased  me. 

Another  matter  in  which  Mr.  Dalton  took  a  vigorous  part 
was  the  question  of  the  re-enlistment  for  three  years  of  a  large 
number  of  Massachusetts  troops,  who,  believing  that  the  war 
would  be  speedily  brought  to  a  close,  had  originally  volun- 
teered for  but  three  months.  Many  of  the  authorities  at 
Washington  desired  to  retain  the  three  months  men  in  the 
three  year  regiments  which  had  already  been  formed  at  the 
capital,  instead  of  giving  them  an  opportunity  to  return  home, 
be  regularly  discharged,  and  re-enlisted  as  State  troops.  To 
this  course  Mr.  Dalton  was  strongly  opposed.  In  a  letter  to 
Governor  Andrew  of  June  22,  1861,  he  wrote  : 

In  regard  to  re-enlisting  the  3  mos.  men  here,  in  3-year  Rgts.  my 
opinion  is  that  there  will  be  many  difficulties,  and  that  by  so  doing  or 
trying  to  do,  we  shall  fail  to  secure  many  of  the  best.  As  all  the  world 
knows,  these  Rgts.  left  home  suddenly,  their  private  affairs  unattended 
to,  the  majority  imperfectly  prepared  for  so  long  a  stay  as  even  3  mos. 
Cameron,  Thomas,  &  Mansfield  all  see  the  importance  of  securing 
these  men  for  3  years,  or  as  large  a  proportion  of  them  as 
possible.  .  .  . 

It  therefore  seems  to  me  most  desirable  that  the  Regt.  be  ordered 
home  soon  after  4th  July,  be  mustered  out,  and  paid,  then  the  men  re- 
enlisted  so  far  as  possible.  These  remarks  apply,  generally,  to  our 
other  3  mos.  men. 

These  views  were  re-echoed  in  Governor  Andrew's  reply  of 
June  29,  and  after  prolonged  interviews  at  the  War  Depart- 
ment and  at  headquarters,  Mr.  Dalton  made  his  point  and  was 
able  to  telegraph  home  on  that  same  day :  "  Scott,  Cameron, 
Thomas,  Wilson  all  agree  that  3-mos.  Regts.  shd.  go  home 
soon  and  men  be  re-enlisted  for  three  years  there." 

Of  all  this  busy  eight  months  in  Washington,  the  busiest 


14 

week  of  all  was  undoubtedly  that  succeeding  the  disaster  at 
Bull  Run.  Mr.  Dalton's  correspondence  doubles  in  quantity 
at  this  crisis,  every  line  of  it  breathes  cheerfulness  and  calm- 
ness in  defeat,  but  at  the  same  time  feverish  energy  and  a 
stern  determination  to  make  good  lost  ground.  Some  of  his 
accounts  of  the  battle  are  interesting.  To  Governor  Andrew, 
under  the  date  of  July  24, 1861,  the  Wednesday  after  the  fight, 
he  writes : 

The  disaster  to  our  soldiers  is  less  than  was  feared.  It  is  that  the 
missing  will  amount  to  6  to  800,  all  told.  The  loss  of  material  is  insig- 
nificant in  value,  with  the  exception  of  am'tion  wh.  is  large.  The  ac- 
counts of  Sunday's  fight  amount  to  this ;  our  troops  were  marched  3  to 
5  hours,  after  a  slight  breakfast,  and  were  at  once  fought  against  fresh 
troops,  protected  by  batteries  and  trenches,  on  a  difficult  ground,  the 
enemy  more  than  double  in  numbers.  For  3  or  4  hours  our  troops 
drove  back  the  rebels,  'till,  at  4  o'ck.  from  a  causeless,  or  rather  utterly 
unnecessary  reason,  the  entire  army,  in  a  few  minutes  was  panic- 
stricken.  The  rout  was  described  as  fearful  in  the  extreme.  That  the 
enemy  were  equally  taken  by  surprise  by  this  movement  appears  from 
the  fact  that  no  attempt  was  made  to  follow  our  flying  army,  otherwise 
it  wd.  have  been  finished  and  Davis  wd.  to-day  have  been  in  the  White 
House.  He  is,  however,  the  other  side  of  the  Union  Entrenchments, 
the  only  side  he  will  ever  see. 

And  to  a  friend : 

The  Govt,  is  exerting  itself  to  the  utmost  to  repair  the  terrible 
blunder  of  Sunday  morning,  that  beautiful  day  to  some  of  us.  While 
we  were  so  pleasantly  going  up  the  mountain  side,  our  troops  were  just 
going  into  a  fight,  after  a  march  of  10  miles,  and  kept  at  this  work, 
without  any  intermission  for  4,  5  and  6  hours,  with  nothing  to  eat, 
against  fresh  troops,  protected  by  their  entrenchments  and  batteries,  and 
more  than  double  in  nos#  Still  inch  by  inch  we  drove  them  back, 
when,  by  some  unaccountable  misfortune,  an  utterly  unexpected  and 
incomprehensible  panic  ran  through  Regt.  after  Regt.  so  that  the  re- 
treat was  general,  in  a  few  minutes.  The  enemy  was  equally  aston- 
ished, for  they  made  no  attempt  to  follow,  or  Washington  wd.  have 
been  taken  and  Davis  wd.  have  been  in  the  White  House  to-day !  .  .  . 
'Tis  sad,  oh  very  sad,  yet  no  hesitation  for  a  moment  must  be  allowed. 
We  must  and  shall  have  an  army  of  100,000  men  ready  to  attack  the 
enemy  shortly,  and  redeem  this  humiliating  blunder. 

His  words  were  justified  by  the  event.  The  second  upris- 
ing of  the  North  in  early  August  swept  all  resistance  before 


15 

it.  Even  at  Washington,  where  there  were  "  too  many  play 
people  to  suit  him,"  as  Mr.  Dalton  once  complained,  the  activ- 
ity was  tremendous.  Two  weeks  later  he  wrote  to  a  friend  at 
home : 

You  should  see  the  energy  and  vigor  with  which  the  work  is  done. 
Our  Govt,  is  worth  fighting  for,  't  is  it  or  long  years  of  misery.  Ele- 
gance is  out  of  the  question  when  the  solemn  fact  stares  us  in  the  face 
of  having  our  lives  and  homes  safe,  or  at  the  mercy  of  a  few  bad,  am- 
bitious, faithless  men.  'T  is  a  fight  for  manhood,  and  if  we  fail,  which 
we  shall  not,  the  happiness  of  long  years  is  gone,  past  help. 

Busy  and  useful  as  he  was  in  Washington,  however,  Mr. 
Dalton  was  chafing  at  every  moment  to  get  away.  He  dis- 
liked the  city  intensely ;  the  calls  of  his  business  and  private 
affairs  were  imperative,  and  twice  during  the  summer  and 
autumn  of  1861  he  was  obliged  to  ask  leave  of  Governor 
Andrew  to  come  home  to  the  North  to  attend  to  them.  On 
both  of  these  occasions  the  stress  of  events  at  the  capital 
caused  him  to  return  much  sooner  than  he  had  intended,  but 
with  the  beginning  of  1862,  when  things  had  got  into  running 
order,  his  residence  at  Washington  was  much  more  frequently 
interrupted.  In  the  early  months  of  this  year  he  paid  many 
visits  to  his  brother  Edward,  who,  having  been  commissioned 
by  the  State  of  New  York  as  surgeon  to  the  Thirty-sixth  New 
York  Volunteers  in  November,  1861,  had  at  once  joined  his 
command,  and  accompanied  it  in  the  forward  movement  of 
the  army  in  March,  1862,  and  through  the  Peninsular  cam- 
paign until  June,  when  he  was  attacked  by  malarial  fever  and 
forced  to  return  to  the  North. 

It  was  perhaps  these  continual  visits  to  the  front  that 
made  Mr.  Dalton  long  for  a  taste  of  real  fighting  and  suggested 
his  application,  in  March,  1862,  for  the  post  of  staff  officer  to 
General  Fre*mont.  "  I  shall  see  him  and  try  to  learn  his  plans," 
he  wrote  to  a  friend,  "and,  after  frankly  confessing  my  igno- 
rance of  military  matters,  ask  him  if  such  as  I  can  be  of  real 
use  on  his  staff,  and  if  he  is  going  to  do  anything  and  wants 
me,  I  shall  want  to  go.  .  .  .  The  more  I  learn  of  his  com- 
mand, the  more  I  hanker  for  it,  for  then  't  will  be  brisk  cam- 
paigning and  not  lying  in  camp,  which  would  worry  me  to 
death,  it  seems  to  me."  Several  unsatisfactory  interviews 
with  the  General  convinced  him,  however,  that  he  stood  no 


16 

chance  of  getting  this  appointment,  and  his  failure  here  really 
marks  the  end  of  the  period  of  his  greatest  activity  in  con- 
nection with  the  Civil  War.  From  that  time  onward  he  was 
often  in  Washington  on  special  business  connected  with  the 
government,  sometimes  at  the  front,  visiting  his  brother,  and 
once  on  board  the  "Monitor"  (April  19,  1862,  just  six  weeks 
after  its  fight  with  the  "Merrimack"),  of  which  he  wrote 
home  the  following  interesting  description : 

Yesterday  morning  some  of  us  took  a  ship's  boat  with  a  crew  and 
went  up  to  the  "  Monitor  "  which  is  stationed  up  above  the  Fortress, 
so  as  to  command  a  view  of  any  movement  of  the  "  Merrimack  "  should 
she  appear  around  Sewell's  point,  about  three-fourths  of  a  mile  from 
where  we  lay  at  anchor.  All  the  large  ships,  steamers,  gunboats  with 
a  large  flotilla  of  transports  and  supply  vessels  lay  down  below  the 
Fortress,  a  mile  and  a  half  from  the  "  Monitor,"  to  be  out  of  the  way  of 
any  surprise,  but  the  armed  vessels  all  having  steam  up  night  and  day, 
and  constantly  on  the  watch  should  a  signal  come  for  them  to  go  up  to 
help  the  "  Monitor."  We  went  on  board  the  "  M,"  and  all  through 
her,  and  I  was  utterly  amazed  to  find  her  such  a  solid,  strong  and  ap- 
parently invulnerable  machine.  She  was  well  battered  in  the  engage- 
ment, the  two  craft  being  only  3  yards  apart  during  some  of  the  time, 
so  that  their  guns  nearly  touched!  But  no  harm  came  to  the  little  ras- 
cal which  has  saved  this  country  from  an  awful  defeat.  The  officers 
seem  entirely  confident  that  the  "  Merrimack  "  can  in  no  way  injure 
her,  either  by  running  her  down  or  by  the  heaviest  guns  they  can  bring 
at  her.  She  is  certainly  a  splendid  success,  and  as  I  say,  apparently 
impenetrable,  but  I  guess  a  pretty  hot  box  to  be  in  during  an  engage- 
ment of  four  hours.  .  .  .  Later  in  the  p.  m.  we  went  down  into  the  fleet, 
passing  the  large  steamer  "  Vanderbilt "  and  others  which  are  lying  here 
to  run  down  the  "Merrimack,"  and  went  on  board  the  "Minnesota,"  a 
noble  Navy  vessel,  with  600  men  and  officers  on  board.  She  was  at- 
tacked by  the  "  Merrimack  "  during  the  Sunday  engagement,  and  could 
not  get  away  nor  defend  herself,  having  got  aground,  and  she  carried 
the  marks  of  the  shots  from  the  "  Merrimack  "  in  many  places.  Had  she 
not  been  saved  from  a  second  attack  by  the  "  Monitor's"  most  fortunate 
arrival,  she  too,  would  have  been  utterly  destroyed.  We  left  the 
"  Minnesota "  about  6  o'clock  p.  m.  to  go  up  to  our  "  Saxon  "  and 
just  then,  heavy  firing  commenced  between  the  battery  of  large  guns  on 
Rip  Raps,  opposite  the  Fortress,  —  our  guns  —  and  the  Rebel  battery 
on  Sewell's  point,  which  is  up  towards  Norfolk  —  3  miles  off.  The 
heavy  shell  would  hum  through  the  air  and  then  burst  with  a  low  dull 
sound  among  the  trees  on  Sewell's  point  where  the  Rebel  battery  is 
concealed.     This  firing  was  kept  up  till  dark,  one  of  our  gun  boats  run- 


17 

ning  up  and  opening  her  guns  on  the  Rebels  also.  You  see  from  this 
diary  what  interests  are  concentrated  around  this  spot  —  the  most  in- 
tense and  momentous  of  any  in  the  world  to-day.  The  French  War 
steamer  and  two  English  ones  lie  here,  also ;  one  of  the  English  away 
up  above  the  "  Monitor,"  where  't  is  not  safe  for  a  Federal  vessel  to  be, 
as  she  is  in  sight  from  the  Rebel  lookouts  at  Norfolk.  All  last  night  we 
were  unloading  shells  into  two  boats  at  our  side,  but  today  the  wind  has 
come  on  to  blow  and  the  roads  are  so  rough  that  nothing  can  lie  along 
side,  so  we  are  delayed. 

After  the  occasion  described  in  this  letter,  there  is  no  record 
of  his  being  at  Washington  or  at  the  front  until  more  than  a 
year  afterwards,  and  then  only  for  the  briefest  period.  His 
appointment,  27  May,  1862,  as  quartermaster  of  the  Fourth 
Battalion  of  Infantry  in  the  First  Brigade,  First  Division  of 
the  Militia  of  the  Commonwealth,  with  the  rank  of  first  lieu- 
tenant —  an  office  the  duties  of  which  could  be  for  the  most 
part  performed  at  home — is  additional  evidence  that  there- 
after he  remained,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  North.  The  only 
other  official  position  which  he  held  in  connection  with  the 
Civil  War,  namely,  membership  in  a  Massachusetts  Board  of 
Recruitment,  appointed  July  14,  1864,  by  Governor  Andrew 
under  an  Act  of  Congress  of  the  same  year  to  supervise  the 
recruitment  of  volunteers  to  the  credit  of  Massachusetts  from 
the  Rebel  States,  did  not  apparently  involve  any  prolonged  or 
arduous  labors.  His  marriage  to  Miss  Mary  McGregor  of 
Boston  occurred  on  25  June,  1862,  directly  after  his  permanent 
return  to  the  North. 

The  years  1862-70  were  spent  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Dalton  for 
the  most  part  in  Boston,  where  they  resided  at  first  at  59  Han- 
cock Street,  and  later  at  33  Commonwealth  Avenue.  Before 
1865  they  spent  their  summers  at  the  old  Spalding  homestead 
in  Chelmsford,  but  in  that  year  they  established  themselves 
permanently  at  Beverly  Farms.  They  were  in  Europe  for  a 
year  in  1866-67,  where  Mr.  Dalton  acted  as  one  of  the  agents 
of  the  Commonwealth  at  the  Universal  Exposition  at  Paris, 
charged  with  the  special  function  of  "  furnishing  to  Massachu- 
setts citizens  desirous  of  exhibiting  their  industrial  products  at 
the  said  Exposition  the  requisite  information  and  facilities." 
During  all  this  period  up  to  1870,  Mr.  Dalton  remained  a  part- 
ner of  the  firm  of  J.  C.  Howe  and  Company.     As  such  he  was 


18 

employed  for  the  most  part  in  Boston,  but  he  also  continued 
frequently  to  visit  the  Print  Works  at  Manchester,  where  he 
was  instrumental  in  the  prevention  of  a  dangerous  strike  in 
July,  1863.  But  even  in  this,  perhaps  the  most  retired  and 
concentrated  portion  of  his  life,  his  zeal  for  the  public  service 
did  not  slacken.  Besides  continuing  to  lend  a  helping  hand 
in  connection  with  the  Civil  War,  the  early  sixties  saw  him 
exceedingly  active  in  promoting  the  organization  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the 
charter  members  and  Treasurer  for  four  years  from  May  6, 
1862.  He  remained  a  member  of  the  Institute  Corporation  till 
1879,  and  was  re-elected  to  it  sixteen  years  later,  but  declined 
to  serve.  A  close  friend  and  admirer  of  President  Walker,  he 
maintained  a  lively  interest  in  the  Institute  long  after  his 
official  connection  with  it  was  severed.  In  1896  he  established 
"  The  Dalton  Graduate  Chemical  Scholarship  Fund  "  of  $5000, 
the  income  to  be  used  "for  the  payment  of  fees  of  American 
male  students,  graduates  of  the  Institute,  who  may  wish  to 
pursue  advanced  chemical  study  and  research,  especially  ap- 
plicable to  textile  industries." 

The  next  two  decades  saw  Mr.  Dalton  at  the  height  of  his 
long  and  prosperous  business  career.  Though  he  had  termi- 
nated his  connection  with  J.  C.  Howe  and  Company  in  1870, 
his  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Print  Works  at  Manchester 
resulted  in  his  appointment  as  treasurer  pro  tern,  during  their 
reorganization  in  1873.  In  the  early  seventies  he  was  for  a 
brief  time  president  of  the  Consolidated  Coal  Company  of 
Maryland,  in  the  interest  of  J.  M.  Forbes  (with  whom  he  had 
had  many  dealings  in  regard  to  the  transport  of  troops  and 
supplies  in  Civil- War  days),  and  in  January,  1876,  he  became 
treasurer  of  the  Great  Falls  Manufacturing  Company  for  two 
years.  Much  more  intimate  was  his  association  with  the 
Merrimac  Manufacturing  Company,  of  which  he  was  treasurer 
for  twelve  years,  from  1877  to  1889 ;  next  to  the  Manchester 
Print  Works,  his  business  career  was  more  closely  identified 
with  this  corporation  than  with  any  other.  His  ability,  integ- 
rity, and  success  in  these  different  enterprises  were  speedily 
recognized,  and  are  attested  by  his  election  as  director  of  the 
Suffolk  National  Bank,  January  12,  1876,  and  January  13, 
1886;  as  trustee  and  vice-president  of  the  Provident  Institution 


19 

for  Savings  in  the  Town  of  Boston,  December  15,  1875,  and 
December  18, 1889 ;  as  director  and  vice-president  of  the  New 
England  Trust  Company,  May  12,  1875,  and  March  31, 1879, 
and  as  director  of  the  Massachusetts  Hospital  Life  Insurance 
Company,  January,  1879.  All  but  the  first  of  these  offices  he 
held  at  the  time  of  his  death.  His  reputation,  moreover,  was 
far  from  being  merely  local.  His  appointment  by  President 
Harrison  in  June,  1889,  as  a  special  commissioner  to  proceed 
to  Europe  to  obtain  the  views  of  the  principal  governments  of 
that  continent  in  regard  to  the  re-establishment  of  a  common 
standard  for  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  and  his  choice  as  judge 
of  manufacturing  at  the  World's  Fair  at  Chicago  in  1893 
(personal  affairs  obliged  him  to  decline  both  these  positions), 
indicate  that  he  was  widely  known  outside  Massachusetts  and 
New  England. 

Interesting  and  valuable  as  is  the  story  of  his  business  career 
and  preferments,  one  is  tempted  to  hurry  over  it  in  order  to 
concentrate  on  what  was  even  more  thoroughly  and  particu- 
larly characteristic  of  Mr.  Dalton,  —  the  wide  and  varied  range 
of  his  public  services.  The  Union  Club  and  Brookline  Coun- 
try Club  bear  eloquent  testimony  to  his  activity  in  furthering 
the  cause  of  social  intercourse  and  good  fellowship  in  this 
community ;  he  was  one  of  the  founders  of  each  of  these  or- 
ganizations, and  labored  long  and  successfully  for  the  pros- 
perity of  both.  Together  with  the  late  Edmund  Dwight,  he 
started  the  Wintersnight  Dinner  Club.  Another  organization 
of  which  he  was  the  founder  and  first  president  was  the  Ark- 
wright  Club  of  New  England  Manufacturers,  whose  beneficent 
advice  and  efforts  in  regard  to  the  tariff  have,  on  several  occa- 
sions, prevented  hasty  and  unwise  legislation.  Mr.  Dalton's 
keen  interest  and  sympathy  in  the  problems  of  the  poor  and 
unemployed  are  attested  by  his  chairmanship  of  the  Citizen's 
Relief  Committee  at  the  time  of  the  panic  of  1893,  and  by  his 
vice-presidency  of  the  Legal  Aid  Society.  But  of  all  his  many 
public  activities,  the  three  in  which  his  name  stands  out  most 
conspicuously  are  his  services  to  the  Massachusetts  General 
Hospital,  to  the  Park  and  Subway  Commissions.  A  brief 
paragraph  may  well  be  devoted  to  each. 

Born  and  brought  up  in  close  touch  with  the  medical  pro- 
fession, Mr.  Dalton  was  always  deeply  interested  in  the  ques- 
tion of  caring  for  the  sick,  injured,  and  infirm.     His  brothers 


20 

John  and  Edward  were  trained  physicians,  and  though  his 
own  calling  in  life  was  another,  Mr.  Dalton's  knowledge  of 
and  interest  in  the  medical  profession  were  far  greater  than 
those  of  the  ordinary  man  of  affairs.  Much  of  his  correspond- 
ence from  Washington  in  Civil-War  days  deals  with  the  care 
and  transportation  home  of  the  sick  and  wounded,  to  the  im- 
provement of  which  he  contributed  valuable  suggestions ;  and 
on  his  return  to  the  North  in  1862  he  became  one  of  the  most 
zealous  workers  in  behalf  of  the  Sanitary  Commission.  His 
connection  with  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital  began  in 
1866  with  his  election  as  a  trustee ;  it  was  rendered  closer  on 
February  1,  1888,  by  his  election  as  president  of  its  corpora- 
tion, an  office  which  he  held  to  the  day  of  his  death.  During 
the  forty-two  years  of  his  connection  with  this  institution  he 
gave  it  his  unwearied,  loyal,  and  efficient  service.  He  was  a 
prominent  member  of  the  committee  for  negotiating  the  sale 
of  the  old  site  at  Somerville,  and  chairman  of  that  for  the 
building  of  the  new  McLean  Hospital  at  Waverley  in  the 
early  nineties,  offices  which  he  performed  with  such  success  as 
to  cause  the  following  minute  to  be  adopted  by  the  Hospital 
trustees : 

The  trustees  desire  to  bear  witness  to  the  services  of  the  President  of 
the  Corporation  during  the  last  three  years.  Accepting  the  chairman- 
ship of  the  McLean  Building  Committee,  and  devoting  time  and  skill  to 
its  constant  demands,  he  transformed  his  office  from  a  merely  presiding 
to  a  laborious  and  highly  efficient  one.  An  enterprise  of  such  magni- 
tude, involving  so  much  to  the  present  and  the  future  of  the  Hospital, 
could  have  been  neither  begun  nor  ended  without  authoritative  super- 
vision, and  this  has  been  performed  by  Mr.  Dalton  in  a  manner  to  claim 
our  respect  and  our  gratitude. 

As  president  of  the  Hospital  Corporation  Mr.  Dalton  de- 
livered an  interesting  address  at  the  celebration  of  the  fiftieth 
anniversary  of  the  first  application  of  ether  at  the  hospital  in 
September,  1816.  Together  with  his  younger  brother,  Henry, 
he  established  in  1891  the  "  Dalton  Scholarship  "  of  $10,000 
for  "  Investigation  in  the  Science  of  Medicine  "  in  memory  of 
the  services  to  the  hospital  of  his  brothers  John  Call  and  Ed- 
ward Barry  ;  and  he  left  an  addition  of  $15,000  to  this  sum  in 
his  will. 

Mr.  Dalton's  services  as  member  of  the  Boston  Park  Com- 


21 

mission  began  with  the  first  appointment  of  that  body  in  1875 
and  lasted  till  his  resignation  in  1884.  During  eight  of  these 
nine  years  he  acted  as  chairman  of  the  commission.  He  was 
the  author  of  its  most  important  report  (that  of  1876),  in  which 
the  general  scheme  of  the  Boston  parks,  as  at  present  existing, 
was  first  laid  out ;  and  the  successful  accomplishment  of  that 
scheme  in  subsequent  years  was  chiefly  due  to  his  energy  and 
executive  ability.  The  duties  of  his  office  were  by  no  means 
easy,  the  frequent  necessity  of  sacrificing  the  property  of  pri- 
vate persons  and  corporations  demanding  both  tact  and  fear- 
lessness in  high  degree,  but  Mr.  Dalton  never  wavered,  and 
carried  through  the  work  which  had  been  laid  upon  him  in  a 
manner  which  commanded  the  admiration  even  of  those  who 
suffered  on  account  of  it.  The  merits  of  the  general  plan 
which  he  originated  are  too  many  to  be  enumerated  here,  but 
among  them  two  are  deserving  of  special  mention.  First,  the 
scheme,  from  the  moment  of  its  inception,  was  one  susceptible 
of  elaboration  and  development  pari  passu  with  the  growth  of 
Boston :  the  commissioners  studied  carefully  the  park  systems 
of  the  five  American  cities  which  already  possessed  them,  and 
also  those  of  the  chief  capitals  of  Europe  before  they  came  to 
any  decision,  and  were  thus  enabled  to  devise  a  plan  which 
should  take  into  account  all  the  possibilities  of  municipal  ex- 
pansion. Second,  the  trenchant  arguments  with  which  Mr. 
Dalton  and  his  colleagues  refuted  in  advance  the  objections 
of  those  who  dreaded  the  expense  which  a  park  system  would 
entail  are  beyond  all  praise.  "  We  think  money  so  expended 
(in  laying  out  park  systems),"  they  wrote,  "  will  be  well  in- 
vested and  quickly  returned,  by  betterments,  and  by  the 
increase  in  taxable  value  of  all  surrounding  property  .  .  . 
and  the  rate  of  taxation  will  thereby  be  reduced  rather  than 
increased."  "  It  is  not  an  extravagant  proposition,  though 
unsusceptible  of  proof,  that  more  taxable  capital  has  been 
driven  out  of  the  city  and  invested  in  neighboring  towns  dur- 
ing the  past  twenty  years,  for  lack  of  a  frontage  for  dwellings 
similar  to  that  around  the  Common  and  Public  Garden,  than 
would  pay  for  the  lands  and  improvements  of  the  parks  located 
under  this  Act,  and  that  within  ten  years  after  laying  out  the 
said  Parks,  a  larger  sum  will  be  returned  within  the  city,  legiti- 
mately belonging  to  it,  than  the  cost  of  these  lands  and  im- 
provements."    And   again,    referring   to   sanitary    conditions 


22 

"  always  paramount  to  such  as  are  purely  financial,"  quoting 
from  the  report  of  1874,  he  says,  "  Nothing  is  so  costly  as  sick- 
ness and  disease,  nothing  so  cheap  as  health.  Whatever  pro- 
motes the  former  is  the  worst  sort  of  extravagance  —  whatever 
fosters  the  latter  the  truest  economy."  In  view  of  municipal 
experience  in  this  country  within  the  last  thirty  years,  how 
sane,  how  just,  how  far-sighted  a  statement  is  this ! 

It  was  not  only  in  beautifying  Boston,  but  also  in  increasing 
its  facilities  for  transportation  that  Mr.  Dalton  rendered  im- 
portant services  to  the  community.  He  was  one  of  the  three 
members  of  the  first  Subway  Commission,  appointed  by  Mayor 
Matthews  January  1, 1894,  and  authorized  to  investigate  the 
advisability  of  constructing  a  subway  for  electric  cars  at  a  cost 
not  to  exceed  $2,000,000.  Within  a  few  months  after  its  ap- 
pointment the  commission  reported  that  a  subway  was  im- 
peratively necessary  in  order  to  relieve  the  congested  condition 
of  traffic  in  Tremont  Street  and  elsewhere,  but  that  $2,000,000 
would  be  a  sum  entirely  inadequate  for  the  satisfactory  build- 
ing of  it.  The  ultimate  result  of  this  report  was  the  appoint- 
ment, in  July,  1894,  of  a  Transit  Commission,  consisting  of  the 
three  who  already  comprised  the  Subway  Commission  and  two 
others,  appointed  by  Governor  Greenhalge.  To  this  body  Mr. 
Dalton  gave  more  than  twelve  years  of  loyal  and  efficient  ser- 
vice. His  connection  with  it  did  not  finally  terminate  till 
October  11,  1906.  During  this  period  the  subway  as  it  exists 
to-day  was  constructed,  leased  to  the  West  End  Street  Railway 
Company,  and  connected  with  the  Elevated.  Mr.  Dalton's 
services  to  the  commission  were  valuable  in  every  department 
of  its  work,  but  special  emphasis  should  be  laid  on  his  general 
business  experience,  his  ability  in  valuing  condemned  real 
estate,  in  negotiating  with  those  from  whom  it  was  to  be 
taken,  and  in  estimating  the  probable  cost  of  extensions  and 
complicated  operations.  As  in  the  days  of  his  service  on  the 
Park  Commission,  he  was  exceedingly  fond  of  visiting  in  per- 
son the  scene  of  excavations  and  building,  with  a  keen  eye  to 
detect  shirking  and  imperfect  work,  and  an  ever-ready  word 
of  encouragement  and  praise  for  those  who  deserved  it.  On 
two  occasions  in  particular  his  services  were  indispensable, 
first,  during  the  negotiations  with  the  Boston  and  Maine  Rail- 
road concerning  the  purchase  of  the  site  of  the  old  station  in 
Haymarket  Square  ;  second,  in  drafting  the  very  complicated 


23 

lease  of  the  subway  to  the  West  End  Street  Railway.  It  should 
be  added  that  from  the  very  first  he  was  an  ardent  supporter 
of  the  plan  of  putting  the  electric  cars  underground,  and  in 
the  early  days  of  the  commission  labored  strenuously,  and  in 
the  end  with  complete  success,  to  bring  others  who  favored  the 
plan  of  surface  cars,  and  the  appropriating  of  a  slice  of  the 
Common  to  give  them  room,  to  his  point  of  view. 

Of  Mr.  Dalton's  connection  with  this  Society,  there  is  little 
that  remains  to  be  said.  Though  in  no  sense  a  historian,  his 
election,  which  occurred  at  the  stated  meeting  of  June  9, 1904, 
was  well  merited  on  account  of  his  wide  and  intelligent  read- 
ing and  his  active  interest  and  participation  in  public  affairs; 
and  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  add  that  it  would  almost  cer- 
tainly have  occurred  earlier  had  he  not  unselfishly  maintained 
the  precedence  of  the  claims  of  a  much  younger  man.  The 
President  has  already  spoken  of  his  two  papers  concerning  his 
own  family's  history  and  traditions,  and  of  his  memoir  of  his 
brother  John,  whose  death,  in  1889,  was  perhaps  the  greatest 
sorrow  of  Mr.  Dalton's  life.  His  rare  attendance  at  our 
monthly  meetings  is  explained  by  his  increasing  deafness  in 
later  years,  while  his  lively  interest  in  the  Society's  work  is 
attested  by  his  regular  reading  of  its  publications.  His  sole 
contribution  to  our  Proceedings  was  a  brief  monograph, 
printed  in  the  form  of  an  open  letter  to  Senator  Crane,  and 
presented  to  the  Society  at  the  stated  meeting  of  January  11, 
1906,  on  the  advisability  of  regulating  the  issue  of  postage 
stamps.  In  it  Mr.  Dalton  recommended  the  adoption  of  the 
Houdon  head  of  Washington  on  all  stamps  except  those  of 
the  one-cent  denomination,  and  for  those  the  head  of  Franklin 
(the  first  Postmaster-General  of  this  country).  This  suggestion 
he  took  pains  to  justify  historically,  by  a  number  of  data  and 
precedents.  The  very  gratifying  result  has  been  the  recent  issue 
(February,  1909)  by  former  Postmaster-General  George  v.  L. 
Meyer  of  a  new  series  of  postage  stamps,  on  a  scheme  almost 
precisely  identical  with  that  suggested  by  Mr.  Dalton,  with  the 
Houdon  head  of  Washington  on  all  denominations  except  the 
one-cent,  and  ten-cent  special  delivery  stamps ;  the  one-cent 
stamp  has  the  Franklin  head.  An  interesting  letter  of  Mr. 
Meyer  to  Mr.  Adams  on  this  subject,  and  a  minute  adopted  by 
the  Society  thereon,  are  printed  in  our  Proceedings  for  March, 
1909. 


24 

This  brief  enumeration  of  the  organizations  and  societies  of 
which  Mr.  Dalton  was  a  member  and  the  enterprises  in  which 
he  bore  a  part,  needs  to  be  supplemented  by  a  few  excerpts 
from  his  correspondence  in  order  to  reveal  the  keenness  and 
range  of  his  interest  in  public  affairs.  A  friend  in  London 
(a  relative  by  marriage)  writes  the  following  description  of 
Mr.  Dalton's  letters  to  him  : 

They  covered  the  period  1902-1907,  and  abounded  in  shrewd 
inquiries  and  pithy  comments  on  public  affairs,  British  and  American. 
In  a  sense,  no  doubt,  their  interest  was  personal  and  ephemeral,  since 
they  were  composed  simply  for  the  reader  to  whom  they  were  addressed, 
without  either  appeal  to  a  wider  audience  or  straining  after  literary 
effect.  But  of  his  writing  it  may  truthfully  be  said  that  the  style  was 
the  man  —  the  man  as  he  was  —  plain,  forcible,  direct,  without  a  super- 
fluous word  or  an  irrelevant  idea,  equally  free  from  parenthesis,  repe- 
tition, and  periphrasis.  Many  an  accomplished  man  of  letters  has 
laboured  for  years,  and  laboured  in  vain,  to  acquire  the  art  which 
seemed  to  have  been  given  by  Nature  to  Charles  Dalton  or  uncon- 
sciously developed  along  with  his  character.  Probably  he  never  hesi- 
tated over  a  phrase  or  considered  the  turning  of  a  sentence.  He  just 
put  down  his  thoughts  as  they  came  into  his  mind  —  confident  that  they 
would  present  themselves  on  paper  in  due  order,  whether  of  sequence 
or  logic.  Let  any  reader  who  thinks  this  an  easy  matter  make  the  ex- 
periment of  describing  some  scene  he  has  witnessed  and  then  compare 
his  performance  with  the  specimens  given  in  this  memoir  of  Charles 
Dalton's  quality  of  self  expression.  How  he  attained  this  sure  literary 
power  I  have  no  means  of  guessing.  All  his  life  he  was  a  reader  of 
good  books,  and  without  purposed  imitation  may  have  formed  himself 
on  some  great  model.  But  he  also  made  his  way  through  a  huge  mass 
of  contemporary  stuff  —  newspapers,  magazines,  official  publications, 
and  books  of  the  current  season  —  which  from  the  literary  point  of  view 
would  be  mere  rubbish,  tolerable  only  for  the  information  given,  and 
compiled  without  sense  of  form.  But  against  the  demoralizing  influence 
of  all  this  bastard  English,  his  style  was  immune.  From  the  press, 
and  the  perishable  trumpery  which  men  of  affairs  must  deal  with,  he 
took  nothing  but  the  new  facts  and  fresh  ideas  for  which  his  mind  was 
always  eager. 

He  was  never  tired  of  learning.  His  alertness  and  receptivity  were 
still  unaffected  when  I  first  came  to  know  him,  and  he  was  then  already 
an  old  man;  his  curiosity  was  but  less  remarkable  than  his  open- 
mindedness.  He  started  life,  no  doubt,  with  a  fairly  strong  crop  of 
anti-British  prejudices.  But  these  had  been  toned  down  by  travel  in 
England  and  close  intercourse  with  individual  Englishmen.     If  he  liked 


25 

us  at  all  he  would  take  us  to  his  heart  as  frankly  as  though  we  had  been 
born  in  Massachusetts  itself.  But  he  was  always  ready  for  a  fight,  either 
across  the  dinner  table  or  by  correspondence.  He  fairly  revelled  in  a 
stiff  argument,  and  as  he  seldom  made  a  statement  for  which  he  could 
not  give  chapter  and  verse,  he  was  a  tough  antagonist.  Once  I  caught 
him  tripping.  Just  by  way  of  "  drawing  "  him  I  had  repeated  in  a  letter 
the  statement  (casually  recalled  from  a  forgotten  magazine  or  pamphlet) 
that  an  eminent  Abolitionist  for  whom  Charles  Dalton  entertained  a 
special  esteem  had  himself  been  a  slave-holder.  By  return  of  post  came 
an  indignant  repudiation  with  the  demand  for  my  authority.  The 
prospect  of  research  in  order  to  make  good  my  random  assertion  was 
somewhat  disconcerting.  But  there  was  no  way  out  of  it.  Before  I  had 
entered  on  my  labours  with  the  British  Museum  catalogue,  however, 
I  received  another  letter  from  Boston  —  ruefully  admitting  the  charge. 
Charles  Dalton  had  himself  gone  laboriously  into  the  question,  and 
found  the  case  proved  against  his  view,  though  with  extenuating  cir- 
cumstances. The  incident  seems  worth  recording  as  proof  of  the 
trouble  which  a  busy  man  would  take  in  a  matter  which  he  thought 
important  and  of  his  intellectual  candour.  If  he  had  left  me  to  myself, 
I  should  probably  have  been  obliged  to  withdraw  my  statement. 

When  the  question  of  protecting  British  industries  and  foster- 
ing Imperial  trade  through  a  revised  tariff  was  raised  by  Mr. 
Chamberlain  in  1903,  Charles  Dalton  engaged  with  me  in  a  long 
and  somewhat  detailed  correspondence.  While  he  did  not  believe  that 
the  people  of  Great  Britain  would  ever  agree  to  what  he  called  "  mon- 
keying with  the  food  supply  "  by  curtailment  of  United  States  imports, 
he  was  quite  as  warm  in  support  of  defensive  operations  in  favour  of 
British  home  manufactures  as  though  the  new  duties  would  not  be 
largely  directed  against  American  competitors.  The  idea  that  such 
a  policy  might  generate  bad  blood  between  the  two  countries  he 
laughed  to  scorn.  Moreover  he  was  at  considerable  pains  to  show 
that  the  enhanced  prices  in  America  were  more  than  compensated 
by  the  higher  rate  of  wages  and  salaries.  He  spent  quite  a  num- 
ber of  days  in  collecting  and  arranging  statistics  aimed  at  showing 
that  the  workingmen  and  poorer  class  of  clerks  in  England  would 
not  necessarily  suffer  under  a  protective  tariff. 

On  the  fishery  disputes  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States 
—  or,  perhaps  one  should  say,  between  the  London  and  Washington 
governments  —  it  was  natural  that  a  strongly  American  line  should  be 
taken  by  a  man  associated  with  the  Republican  party  in  Massachusetts 
and  a  cordial,  if  occasionally  discriminating,  supporter  of  recent  admin- 
istrations. But  his  chief  anxiety  was  that  all  such  outstanding  ques- 
tions should  be  brought  to  a  satisfactory  settlement.  When  a  change 
was  made,  a  little  time  after,  in  the  British  Embassy  at  Washington, 


26 

he  wrote  at  once  to  make  all  possible  inquiries  about  the  new  repre- 
sentative of  Great  Britain.  As  a  man  of  the  world,  who  was  acquainted 
with  some  of  the  most  influential  persons  in  American  politics,  he  knew 
how  important  a  part  may  be  played  in  public  affairs  by  the  personal 
qualities  of  the  diplomatists  employed  by  a  Foreign  Power.  On 
national  enterprises  in  which  he  took  pride,  such  as  the  completion  of 
the  Trans- Isthmian  Canal,  Charles  Dal  ton  spared  no  trouble  in  collect- 
ing and  forwarding  information  that  might  usefully  be  circulated  in 
England.  He  delighted  also  in  giving  me  fresh  and  unconventional 
sketches  of  eminent  countrymen.  Over  and  over  again,  when  writing, 
from  the  British  point  of  view,  upon  some  international  controversy,  I 
have  found  my  phrases  mitigated,  perhaps  my  judgment  modified,  by 
recalling  a  sentence  in  one  of  Charles  Dalton's  lucid,  reasoned,  and 
pointed  letters.  That  his  opinions  were  untinged  by  patriotic  prepos- 
session he  would  never  have  pretended,  but  his  sincerity  was  so 
obvious,  his  outlook  so  broad,  that  one  felt  confident,  on  reading  what 
he  had  written,  that  one  was  being  brought  into  communion  with  the 
highest  individual  expression  of  the  dominant  American  feeling. 

A  few  passages  from  his  letters  to  another  London  friend 
attest  the  truth  of  this  description.  "  Do  not  destroy  your 
Lords !  "  he  wrote  in  1885.  "  It  is  said  Americans  admire 
them,  and  so  they  do,  your  cathedrals  and  castles  and  great 
estates.  If  you  want  Democracy,  come  here  or  go  to  any  of 
your  colonies,  but  keep  Old  England  for  what  she  has  been 
and  is,  Lords  and  all."     And  again  in  another  letter: 

You  cannot  approve  of  the  Republican  protective  policy,  nor  do  I 
wonder  at  it  from  an  English  point  of  view,  for  I  suppose  such  a  policy 
would  be  fatal  to  England.  But  our  conditions  permit,  or  rather, 
demand,  our  own  methods,  whereby,  as  I  suggested  to  you,  America 
may  become,  as  she  rapidly  is  doing,  a  self  supporting  nation  .  .  . 
Why  should  we  follow  in  England's  wake  [in  regard  to  foreign  expan- 
sion] .  .  .  Our  civilizing  functions  are  exercised  upon  subjects  coming 
to  us  instead  of  our  going  to  them.  Do  you  appreciate  this  task  ?  A 
daily  stream,  1500  to  2000  strong,  every  day  in  the  year,  mostly  igno- 
rant, with  wrong  ideas,  many  with  vicious  habits  to  be  trained  to 
become  respectable,  voting  citizens.  It  is  a  contract  which  no  other 
nation  would,  or  perhaps  could,  undertake. 

The  crowning  reward  of  this  long  and  active  life  of  upright 
character  and  disinterested  public  service  was  a  truly  beautiful 
old  age  and  a  blessedly  peaceful  death.  The  gentlest,  sunniest 
side  of  his  character  was  all  to  the  fore  in  his  declining  years, 


27 

And  that  which  should  accompany  old  age 
As  honor,  love,  obedience,  troops  of  friends 

he  enjoyed  in  fullest  measure.  His  earlier  activities  were  of 
course  diminished,  but  by  no  means  entirely  cut  off,  and 
further  restriction,  which  might  have  been  irksome,  and  which 
his  physician  contemplated  advising  in  his  last  days,  were 
spared  him  by  the  quiet  sleep  into  which  he  fell,  all  uncon- 
scious of  his  approaching  end,  on  the  morning  of  23  February, 
1908,  and  from  which  he  knew  no  waking. 

The  salient  feature  of  Mr.  Dalton's  character,  as  the  fore- 
going sketch  has  been  primarily  intended  to  show,  was 
helpfulness  —  helpfulness  in  the  largest  sense  of  the  word, 
helpfulness  toward  individuals  and  towards  the  community  at 
large.  Some  of  his  more  distinguished  public  services  have 
been  already  touched  upon ;  those  which  he  rendered  to  single 
persons,  though  impossible  to  enumerate,  formed  an  equally 
important  part  of  his  life.  Though  a  generous  giver  of  money, 
he  preferred  the  more  ambitious  and  active  methods  of  aiding 
by  unstinted  devotion  of  time,  energy,  and  patience.  A  con- 
temporary and  friend  of  thirty  years  says  of  him : 

He  was  a  very  rare  man  in  his  simplicity,  his  high  standards,  his 
never  failing  public  spirit,  his  generosity  and  his  kindliness.  This 
community  owes  him  more  than  many  realize,  not  only  for  what  he  did 
in  so  many  ways  to  help  his  fellow-citizens,  but  for  his  example,  —  for 
his  life,  which  was  a  constant  example.  In  a  generation  when  men  are 
advertising  themselves,  seeking  offices,  honors  and  money,  he  was  con- 
spicuous for  seeking  none  of  these,  and  asking  only  for  opportunities  to 
serve.  We  have  too  few  such  men,  and  the  loss  of  such  a  man  is  a 
public  calamity. 

Next  to  this  quality  of  helpfulness  should  be  placed  the  re- 
markable energy,  masterfulness,  and  virility  of  his  character. 
Shirking  and  laziness  were  abhorrent  to  him.  He  saw  the  end 
to  be  gained  with  unvarying  clearness,  and  was  direct  and 
forcible  in  his  methods  of  attaining  it,  and  perhaps  sometimes 
a  little  hast}'-  in  his  judgments  of  those  who  disagreed  with 
him.  He  had  his  full  share  of  gaudium  eertaminis,  and  never 
flinched  from  any  task  which  demanded  a  struggle  or  a  con- 
test.    But  he  never  suffered  a  temporary  difference  of  opinion 


28 

permanently  to  cloud  his  relations  with  his  fellow-men:  he 
never  let  the  sun  go  down  upon  his  wrath,  nor  permitted  any 
vexatious  incident  to  disturb  the  current  of  his  naturally 
cheerful  and  genial  disposition.  His  was  a  conspicuous  case 
of  the  ripening  and  mellowing  of  old  age.  Without  abating 
one  jot  of  the  vigor  and  forcibleness  which  had  characterized 
him  from  the  first,  he  grew  wonderfully  in  the  complementary 
virtues  of  gentleness,  patience,  and  serenity. 

He  was  a  most  genial  and  charming  host,  and,  once  more 
like  his  grandfather,  "  was  fond  of  generous  living  and  accus- 
tomed to  make  ample  provision  for  his  bodily  comfort,  but 
was  never  excessive  in  any  personal  indulgence."  His  bear- 
ing was  always  distinguished  by  a  certain  gallant  quality,  pe- 
culiarly his  own,  which  marked  him  off  as  one  of  eminence  and 
distinction  among  his  fellow-men.  To  those  in  his  employment 
he  was  unvaryingly  kind,  "  his  help  to  them  being  usually  given 
in  the  form  of  a  surprise,"  as  one  of  them  writes.  He  de- 
lighted in  the  society  of  younger  men  and  women,  and  they  in 
turn  esteemed  it  the  greatest  privilege  to  sit  by  his  fireside  or 
at  his  table,  and  to  hear  and  participate  in  the  interesting  con- 
versation that  was  always  to  be  found  there.  With  every  age 
and  walk  of  life  he  felt  a  warm  bond  of  sympathy ;  he  never 
wavered  nor  faltered  to  the  very  end ;  and  he  died,  as  he  had 
lived,  loyal  and  devoted  to  those  he  loved,  a  brave  and  faithful 
servant  of  his  country  and  of  mankind. 


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